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Friday, 7 February 2014

Are Palestinians descended from Jews?

Semites have much in common whatever their religion. You see that clearly looking at Muslim and Christian Arabs and Jews in close proximity in Jerusalem. I wondered how many Arabs are descended from Jews who converted to Islam or Christianity.

Of course, the internet knows everything if one looks. I came across this:

"A majority of the Muslims of Palestine, inclusive of Arab citizens of Israel, are descendants of Christians, Jews and other earlier inhabitants of the southern Levant whose core may reach back to prehistoric times. A study of high-resolution haplotypes demonstrated that a substantial portion of Y chromosomes of Israeli Jews (70%) and of Palestinian Muslim Arabs (82%) belonged to the same chromosome pool"

This does cast a fascinating light on the whole long Arab-Jewish debate. One of the very many sad aspects of the story, though I admit a very minor one, is that after the arrival of the Ashkenazi Jews in large numbers the indigenous Jews of Palestine - ceased to be exactly like their Muslim and Christian neighbours, except for their religion, and became deracinated, semi-Americanised. So did the Middle Eastern Jews, whom I have seen referred to as 'black Jews', who found refuge in Israel after they were expelled in 1948 by the new Jewish state's neighbours. Some people, of course, believe the theory that the Ashkhenazi are not descendants of the biblical Jews at all and instead are Khazars who converted to Judaism, but that is another, fascinating story. I never believed it. As I said, Ashkenazi seem to me to be clearly Semites and this very interesting recent news seems to refute the idea, while suggesting the Ashkenazi can be traced to Europe rather than to Palestine.